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Former Senator Alan Simpson gave an interview on the Today
Show this morning and here are a few comments he made.

"There's people that we owe $16 trillion bucks
to."

"We're in deficit to the tune of $1 trillion one hundred
million. If that isn't a stimulus then the drinks are on
me."

"Unless you get in there these people are going to say, I got
an idea for you...you're addicted to debt, and we're gonna loan
you more and we want more money for our money and then when we do
that interest rates will kick up and inflation will kick
in..."

First off the gov't owes about half of that $16 trillion to
itself, so let's just correct him right off the bat and by the
way, why doesn't he make that clear? The answer is, because it's
part of his campaign to manipulate you. He has no leverage if
you're not scared.

Next he says we're in a deficit to the tune of $1.1 trillion. And
he says, "if that's not a stimulus then the drinks are on
me."

Ok, I'm confused here. Is he agreeing that the deficit is a
stimulus?

Moving on he's saying that we owe money. Let's get real...WE owe
nothing. WE got paid, in dollars. That's what we OWN not owe.
Dollars. That's it. The world (including parts of our own
government) got to keep $16 trillion dollars because in the past
234 years that's the amount of dollars the gov't spent into the
economy in excess of what it took away from us in taxes.

Those people/nations/institutions...whatever...are holding those
dollars in dollar equivalents called Treasuries, just like you
holding your money in a savings account at your bank. How does
the bank "pay you back?" It debits your savings account and
credits your checking account. That's it. Done. Just like that.
Nobody screaming where's the bank gonna get the money to pay you
back? Nobody saying the bank has to go on austerity in order to
be able to move your money from your savings account to your
checking account. The bank just makes some accounting changes and
your savings account balance goes down and your checking account
balance goes up. Same thing with how we "pay back" holders of
Treasuries. The Fed just debits their securities account (at the
Fed) and credits their reserve account (also at the Fed). In fact
this has been done to the tune of $11.6 trillion so far this
fiscal year alone. We're talking two and a half months! In that
time the national debt has been almost completely rolled over
(paid back).

Let's keep going. Simpson says people are loaning us the money
because we're addicted to debt. So, who is loaning us money? What
money? Dollars? Here’s a simple question for Alan that the
interviewer should have asked: If we make the money, which we do,
why do we need to borrow it? Where is that person who is lending it to us,
getting it from? I guarantee you, he won’t be able to answer
that.

Finally, the most idiotic of his claims (fear mongering) were his
claims that if we don’t pay down the debt rates are going to go
up and inflation is going to go up.

Take a look at the charts below.

US Public Debt and 10yr Treasury yield

Mike Norman,
FRED

And this...

US Public Debt and Inflation

Mike Norman,
FRED

Interest rates have been collapsing even as the debt has been
skyrocketing. Inflation has been non-existent even as the debt
has been skyrocketing. When will you stop being scared by these
false and ridiculous stories about the debt? And when will the
media call bullshit on these claims?